***Harry Potter Spoiler Alert***
(If you haven’t read the HP books, maybe repent and go do so?
This first part of the post is for Harry Potter readers that have finished the 6th book. If that is not you continue to read after the spoilers are over. It will be labeled clearly.)
In the 6th installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore commits to meeting with Harry in a series of important one-on-one meetings in which they unravel Tom Riddles’ twisted past. During their last meeting, Dumbledore reveals the lengths that he believes Voldemort has gone to become immortal and likewise the efforts Harry will have to undertake to defeat him.
Harry befittingly feeling overwhelmed with the daunting task and perhaps a bit frustrated and disheartened by the prophecy that spells out an ostensibly grim fate for him, Harry airs his grievances about the lack of weapons and tools at his disposal for his seemingly inevitable fight and death at the hands of Voldemort. Dumbledore forcefully stamps those notions of Harry’s lack of tool and his lack of choice out in the last couple of paragraphs of the 23rd chapter of the book and imbues Harry with a sense of ownership, determination, and initiative. In what would be one of Dumbledore’s parting gifts and the culmination of all of Dumbledore’s mentoring he counters Harry’s frustrations by teaching Harry about fate, love, and the power behind voluntarily embracing one’s destiny.
“You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything! But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal. … In other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy. He will continue to hunt you … which makes it certain, really, that —”
“That one of us is going to end up killing the other,” said Harry. “Yes.”
But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew — and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents — that there was all the difference in the world.
This shift in Harry is what gives him the strength to strike out on his own and willingly shoulder his burdens with dynamism and determination. Up to this point, everything just happened to Harry. He didn’t ask for any of this. He was tossed around by the twists of chance and fate. His parents were killed, his adoptive parents were assholes, and since his birth, the most powerful dark wizard in history has been determined to murder him personally. At the tender age of 11 he was thrown into a fantastical world full of prophecies about him, built-in arch nemeses, and a path that seemingly would only end with suffering, ostracization, and the brutal death of friends, family, and himself. This newfound knowledge that Harry received made his death more certain and his future bleaker than ever but the complete ownership of his choice to voluntarily continue and his self-driven agency to act is what allowed him to move forward with hope, energy, and eventually, victory.
***End of Harry Potter Spoiler***
I am not a believer in fate or destiny in the traditional set-in-stone sense and neither was Dumbledore. I abhor the implications of fatalism and determinism as they are super depressing and false. What I am a staunch believer in is free will and choice, I believe that no matter what happens to us it can be for our good, and despite rejecting fate as a concept I will admit that there will be important moments that are thrust upon us that only we can act on. Things that are unique and specific to our lives that only we can choose how to handle. And the best way to react to these crucial moments be they painful and unpleasant or exhilarating and joyful is to enthusiastically welcome whatever they are whenever they come to us. Greif and fear should not find us nervous for another beating but confident, familiar, and with cordial acceptance.
I believe the best way to live life is to consciously, willingly, and wholeheartedly embrace any pain or pleasure no matter how deep. Hug your cactus, embrace the suck, take up your cross just as much as you embrace, and savor the good fortune that comes your way. I and others like me waste so much time complaining, malingering, and trying to convince the world that we were robbed when we could change all of those into growth opportunities, positive experiences, or at the very least welcome them with gratitude as necessary and expected parts of life.
Wholeheartedness is a skill and the same people who can’t fully accept pain, and sorrow will equally have a hard time fully accepting joy and fun in their life. It is an internal paradigm shift that will allow you to draw the best from everything that comes to you in life no matter where you are. It must be done within you and can be done within you despite where you are in life or as Samuel Johnson so eloquently puts it, “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.”
At the end of the Oscar award-winning movie, Jojo Rabbit, an excerpt from the German poet, Ranier Rilke’s poem “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” is shown shortly before the movie credits roll. The poem is from “Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Letters to God” where he explores his sometimes tenuous belief in God. The whole poem is great but the excerpt that Waititi includes in the movie is this.
Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final
And I agree with Rilke in his direction but not his magnitude, don’t just let it happen to you! Welcome beauty welcome terror, abide in them, and know that the best is yet to come.
To be continued in Part II